Participant Recruitment

All of the studies in the lab require that we recruit participants. All recruitment procedures are governed by the IRB, so please check your approved IRB protocol for approved recruitment methods.

Some of the recruitment methods we use are:

Word of mouth: Members of the lab are free to notify people that we are recruiting participants for our lab's studies. However, before bringing someone into the lab to participate in an experiment, that individual must directly contact us via email or telephone expressing their interest in the study.
Flyers: Each IRB protocol has an IRB-approved flyer attached to it. In most cases, this flyer can be posted both on and off campus or handed directly to interested participants. If you want a fancier flyer, you should design that yourself and make sure you receive IRB approval via a study modification before using it.
UT lists: Many of our protocols allow us to distribute information about our studies via UT email lists. If you want to use this approach, you must use the IRB-approved email script associated with your protocol. To use UT lists, you should:
1. Identify the lists to which you want to distribute recruitment materials. These can be found here: https://utlists.utexas.edu/sympa/lists
  1. Some possibilities are:
2. Contact the owner of the list describing your request, including a copy of your IRB-approved email script. The list owner can be contacted at nameofthelist-request@utlists.utexas.edu
3. If the list owner approves your request, send your IRB-approved email script to the list OR request that the list owner distributes your IRB-approved email script.
RedCap:
1. RAs will use RedCap to recruit participants: https://redcap.prc.utexas.edu/redcap/index.php?action=myprojects. RAs must contact RedCap administrators to gain access to a RedCap account for the protocol they will be working on.
2. Once accessible, RAs will login using their EID and password and click on the protocol they are working on.
3. To search for possible subjects, click on "Data Exports, Reports, and Stats." Next, click "View Report" next to "All Data."
4. Then, the RA will identify eligible participants (based on the protocol they are following) and contact these participants using the laboratory email account (falconlearninglab@gmail.com or falconlearninglab@utexas.edu).
5. Eligible participants will be invited to the laboratory, scheduled during any available RAs times.
6. The RA will put the subjects time on the Google lab calendar (FALCON SMNP Lab Scheduler) as "PROTOCOL_PARTICIPANTS PROTOCOL NUMBER (Names of Researchers)."

After a potential participant decides they are interested in learning more about our studies, they will be instructed to email f alconlearninglab@gmail.com for more information. At this point, you should respond to the email as quickly as possible. In your response, include a brief description of the procedures involved in the experiment, the number of sessions the participant would be asked to complete, the overall duration of each session, and any potential compensation the participant may receive. You should also include a list of our IRB-approved eligibility criteria, instructing the potential participant to respond with a YES or NO to each question. If the potential participant is eligible and interested in participating, you can then schedule them for a time to complete the experiment.

Once you have scheduled an experiment, please ensure that you add this information to the SMNP+FALCON lab scheduler. Make sure that you are not adding it to your personal calendar instead. On the scheduler, list the study name and the names of the research staff who will perform the experiment. You should never list any personally-identifiable information about the potential participant on the lab scheduler.